All's well that ends well...

[skipgundlach]

All's well that ends well...

We left you as we anchored in Marsh Harbour, having had a chartplotter
failure on the way in. We had a guest coming in a couple of days, and
our expected travels would involve a lot of places we needed to avoid
as being too shallow. Therefore, having a more convenient way of
seeing where we were than relying on the chart program below, on the
nav station computer, was our first priority.

As the MFD seemed to function other than as a graphic display of
charts, my first suspicion was of the chart chip. I have two card
readers aboard Flying Pig, but both have been somewhat unreliable over
the past years of sitting in a marine environment. Eventually, I gave
up and ordered a new one, to go with the replacement DVD drive (ours
died recently) and the O-ring needed for my outboard project to be
brought by our friend when she arrived.

However, inspecting all the CF cards I have (software update, and a
different region of charts), using a different computer, and having
burnished the pins and slots of the readers and cards, I determined
that both the Central and South America, Caribbean and Northern
Bahamas chip and the upgrade software were OK. As well, I'd gotten
onto the morning cruisers' net (a VHF announcements and weather
'meeting' of cruisers over the radio), and found a fellow cruiser, in
the same harbour, who had a compatible plotter. After visiting their
boat, and putting my two chart chips into his MFD, we found that the
SA chip worked, and the NA chip was invisible - not defective, but
dead.

Over the last few years, we have had our Raymarine C120Classic MFD
(multi-function display) repaired by the factory, and I'd developed an
email relationship with one of the technicians there. I'll omit the
technical discussion, but we'll take the MFD apart and inspect the
area where the chart chip is inserted. But...

Curious, (carefully - there have been issues with the receiver before)
I mounted the other chart chip. Nothing different. Tried the
original chip. It went in MUCH easier, my having, finally, out of
frustration, used some electronics cleaner in the pin receivers. But
no change. No charting.

Once again with the SA chip. Felt it bottom out in the pins in the
receiver. Turned on the MFD. Bingo! The charts are there! And
because of our GPS, there's our boat, in the middle of the harbour,
with all the features and depths marked!

WOW! I wonder how far north of here this goes? Much to my pleasure,
the charts cover all of the Northern Bahamas, and the US coverage ends
at the Fort Pierce inlet - the one to which we'd sail on the way home!
Fearful of any change, I leave the chip in the MFD. Over the next few
hours, I cycled the MFD. On, confirm charts are working, turn off.
Worked every time. Phew. I'll be holding my breath every time until
we are back on a mooring in Vero Beach, but at least for now it's
promising.

So, now somewhat reassured, our guest arrives with my goodies. As
we're anxious to get under way, I toss the parts brought onto the
workbench and go about departing for Fowl Cay, a national underwater
park. We could stay out on our anchor in that area (a frequent
destination for us, so very familiar), and go snorkeling on a slack
tide the next day.

All is well, but on August 8th, there was no wind; off we go by motor
at 2:15. Our MFD behaves as though there's nothing amiss, to my
relief. Anchoring off Fowl Cay, there are two other boats there as
well, but they are playing on the small beach on this side of the Cay.
My thought of waiting until the next day to go to the reef was soundly
voted down by the women; we went off to explore and reconnoiter for
the following day's snorkel. Despite a fair amount of idling along
and looking down at suspicious areas, we did not find what we'd
remembered - which were reefs which were not very deep at the bottom,
and close to the surface in most places at the top. So, we headed in,
turned the corner for the beach, and swam for a while before returning
to Flying Pig and rinsing off in fresh water.

A crummy day on the water is better than a good day ashore, so while
we didn't see a great deal, we got out in the sun and breeze and
explored the waters on the Atlantic side of Fowl Cay. However, since
wandering around in that area didn't show us anything exciting, I got
on the Cruisers' Net again the next morning, and asked where the
reefs were.

I got some definition, and, encouraged, we resolved to try those
coordinates late that morning. Slack water (little current) was close
to noon, so the sun angle would be ideal. But first, I wanted to make
our 15HP engine right; I'd use one of the 4 properly-sized (indeed,
factory parts) O-rings our guest had brought along. Not so fast.
They're nowhere to be found on the workbench, where I tossed the stuff
she'd brought us. It turned out that Lydia had tossed the padded
envelope, opened, that Alice had brought, and that trash had left the
boat. Sigh....

We got out our dive skins(very lightweight suits designed to make
getting in and out of neoprene wetsuits easier, but affording
protection from scrapes and sunburn) weights, snorkels, masks and fins
and headed around through the cut, pushed by our trusty 6HP engine,
slowly (the 15HP engine would plane us).

Sure enough, while we didn't see any moorings (they apparently were
VERY far out), we did see several very large reefs, and enjoyed seeing
all the beautiful colors of both coral and fish. My adding some
weight to my body made it so that I was only slightly buoyant at the
surface. That still made it effortless to stay up, but on the way
down, that added weight became helpful as my lungs compressed with the
depths and I sank naturally. So, getting, and staying, down was much
easier, and I enjoyed poking in and around the shelves and corals,
enjoying the fish and other wildlife.

We covered three reefs in our time there. As always, these are
beautiful and populated with many colors of fish. Alice got lots of
great pictures; I had a wonderful time sitting on the bottom admiring
the schools passing before me, or diving to look under ledges in hopes
of spotting a lobster (none seen, and they're protected, in any case,
in that national park).

We went in after an hour or so, as, if we hurried, we could make it to
Nipper's, an internationally known eat-and-drinkery slightly north of
Fowl Cay. We wanted to show our guest the magnificent view, and a
gorgeous beach there. Some time ago, I had succumbed to the offer to
buy a Tervis Tumbler (a high-end clear plastic insulated tumbler) with
Nipper's logo in it, but filled with their signature drink, the Frozen
Nippers. So I brought it along; sure enough, if you present them a
16oz tumbler or mug you've bought there, your drink will be dispensed
in that glass (assuming, of course, that you proffer it and ask for
them to use it for your drink), and I took the two 12oz standard
drinks and mine to the table where we sat and admired the view as we
enjoyed the slushy drinks.

We hurried back to Flying Pig so that we could get to Hopetown in time
to anchor before dark. We got the anchor up at 5PM, but the day was
still virtually windless, so again we motored (again with the instant
response of the starter installed off Grand Cay). We had the anchor
down at 7PM in 8' of water, near the Parrot Cays, and enjoyed a pork
chop dinner on the grill. That was a great way to spend the first day
with our guest, and she loved it.

The next day was for exploration of Hopetown. Hopetown is unique in
the world, as it has the sole remaining manned, clockwork,
kerosene-fired, Fresnel Lensed lighthouse. Jimmy Buffet was a fan of
Fresnel-lensed lighthouses, and had spent considerable time in
Hopetown years before. It led him to write a novel - A Salty Piece of
Land - in which the Elbow Cay (which contains Hopetown and other
communities) is featured by example. It has never failed to impress,
and this time was no different.

On the way out, we stopped in the gift shop, as Alice (our guest) had
wanted to buy some island-themed gifts. A couple of items later, we
set off to the public dock for our tour of town. I'll spare you the
travelogue, as there are many which tell you everything, but it
suffices to say that we enjoyed the walk, the cemeteries, and even the
various shops. We ended our time in Hopetown with a delicious late
lunch, overlooking the water.

Alice had never sailed before, so when we got back to the boat, after
retrieving the anchor, we set the genoa alone and motor-sailed toward
Man O War, where we'd swim on the beach and give ourselves a debriding
wash with the sand helping get off dead skin. But first, we had to
wonder if our MFD was about to die. Despite just having had the screen
replaced, since we really didn't have any experience with our chart
chip, we didn't know if the brown line of distortion coming from the
left was serious. We kept an eye on it and, sure enough, it managed
to stay put. In the end, we never saw that anomaly again. I guess
that's why they're called anomalies!

With Alice at the wheel, and the breeze coming over the starboard
side, our engine-room exhaust fan's hot air also came with it,
somewhat. So when Alice said she smelled something burning it
immediately got my attention. Doing my best imitation of a chemistry
student, I waved some of the hot air toward me. Sure enough, it
smells. We quickly turned off the engine. Hurrying below, I opened
the engine room doors to find it full of smoke. But it smelled like
exhaust, not fire or rubber or other not-good things. The boat was
still sailing under genoa alone, and Alice was comfortable in keeping
us in a straight line, so I set about to find the source of the
problem.

There was a split fitting of a 1/4" relief hose early in the exhaust
line. Phew. No major difficulty. But we need the vent line, and I
don't have a replacement fitting aboard. Yanking the "plumbing
bucket" from the closet, I start to rummage. Sure enough, while not a
direct replacement, I manage to cobble together enough parts and sizes
of hoses and nipples that I can again make that connection sound. It
proved out, and we continued to our anchorage off Man O War, getting
there not much before dark.

This anchorage was chosen for its fairly substantial beach, so we
packed our suppers and headed in with our various scrubbies,
emollients and cleansers, and other things pretty dim to this old guy
who can manage entirely with a cake of soap. Imagine our surprise
when, just before we are to land, a golf cart arrives and sits facing
the water. As it turned out, they were the lead couple of the
eventual 10 folks who, apparently, make a regular thing out of
saluting the sunset from the water, hoisting their wine glasses to the
sun as it disappears.

As this beach has a small gazebo, with a picnic table in it, we were
gratified to see that it had been placed by a charitable organization,
and not someone's private property. We gleefully ate our PBJs
(EVERYTHING tastes better after a day on the water!), and when the sun
had disappeared, and so had our companions, we went in for our scrubs.

Well debrided and squeaky clean, free of any sweat, we headed back for
our rinses and some conversation before bed. We'd managed to stuff a
lot into a day, again, but Alice hadn't really been sailing, yet, as
the engine was on for most of the time we'd moved with her aboard.
The weather suggested a possibility of sailing the next day, and we
went to bed with fingers crossed.

August 11th dawned in a promising fashion; it looked like we might be
able to sail our way to the anchorage in Marsh Harbour. The normal
routine before anything happens is "my 1-2-3s" - the equivalent of a
preflight for an airplane. I discovered that Perky, our trusty, but
chronically leaking oil (all of our model do) from the rear seal,
"auxiliary engine" (the engine inside the boat, which would drive it
in the event of no wind) needed some oil.

It's not to the degree found in Captain Ron, but we need to keep an
eye on it. Every 50 hours or so we add some oil, and everything else
was routine with, again, an instant start from our behemoth of a
starter we'd installed at Grand Cay.

We had the anchor up at 10:15, with both sails up at the same time,
and we set off. With Alice at the helm, we were making 4 knots
against the current, close reaching at 60° apparent wind in a 12 knot
breeze. We even had a small squall to liven up her time at the wheel,
but we had sails down by 11AM and anchor down in shallow water, in
Marsh Harbour, by 11:30. It was a perfect and complete introduction
to sailing for Alice.

Our time was at an end, and we called a taxi to take her to the
airport, to arrive in 10 minutes (as we got her stuff loaded and us
all into the dinghy to take to the dock). All went well until, with
us on the dock, another 15 minutes had passed with no taxi. Oops!

As I'd not come off with a portable radio (the way you reach the cabs
from a boat is via VHF radio), I said my goodbyes - in case the taxi
arrived while I was gone - and headed back to the boat. Just about
the time I reached the mike, the taxi drove up. It turned out that
she had been delayed because she'd picked up a passenger for delivery
to the dock, from the incoming version of the same flight Alice would
take out. So, all's well that ends well; I picked Lydia up at the
dock and we went to decompress.

Every guest is different, and we'd not cruised together before, so
both of us (we and she) wondered how it would go. By the end of our
time, we both agreed that it had been marvelous, and vowed to make
another trip of more substantial time in the future. We were anchored
and safe, so we left to go to Maxwell's, the rough equivalent to a
major US grocery store, albeit with much higher prices due to the
duties imposed on the already more expensive (due to transportation
costs - everything comes on a boat), to restock.

We found all that we needed, including more fresh vegetables, and took
advantage of the - we'd found - scrumptious pork chops, priced, due to
some anomaly in the duty schedule, along with lamb, very affordably,
some more Dave's Bread, eggs and orange juice. Their egg display never
fails to amaze me, as it's huge and deep; Bahamians must love them as
much as we do, because our ten cartons didn't make a dent in the
supply. And, every single time that we're in the store, there's
another case or two being loaded into the cooler.

Back to the boat, a lovely dinner with pork chops over the grill, and
an early bedtime so that we could go to the cruisers-maintained beach
at the bottom of Lynyard Cay the next day, to work on our dinghy.
We'd had what would have otherwise been a warranty issue, but since
the Walker Bay Genesis 10' dinghy was a replacement of a previous
warranty issue'd boat, the original warranty dates governed. I'll
spare you the technical discussion, but we are far from the only ones
with this particular issue, a fact discovered after publishing our
travails on the internet places I haunt.

So, after I conducted the morning Cruiser's Net (a VHF radio news and
weather summary), a service I do when I'm in the area, giving the
regular anchor a break, and a leisurely breakfast, a little after
noon on August 13th, we prepared for the next phase of our time in
Abaco. With no other commitments, a working engine and a working
chartplotter, we confidently headed south to the anchorage at the
south end of Lynyard Cay, the southernmost cay on the Sea of Abaco.
The southern part of the Sea of Abaco (bounded by the outer barrier
islands and Great Abaco) is very shallow, but if you do a pretty large
amount of turning, you can still take a deep draft boat like Flying
Pig south on the inside (rather than out in the Atlantic) on the way
to Little Harbour, home of Pete's Pub and a bronze foundry and
artist's sculptures made there.

Our arrival was uneventful, other than the annoying fact of having to
run the motor, as, again, there was no wind. With all of our motoring
(all the way around the top and bottom of Abaco) I was a bit concerned
about our fuel supply. So, when we anchored at a bit before 6PM, I
measured the fuel remaining. A bit over 5 gallons meant that we had a
very limited remaining time of motoring, so I decanted the 4 5-gallon
jerry cans of fuel we'd brought with us, giving us plenty of fuel for
mucking around in the area before returning to Marsh Harbour, where we
could pull up to a fuel dock.

August 14th dawned clear and breezy - enough that it didn't feel
uncomfortably hot, but would allow for good solar gain, via our solar
panels, to recharge our batteries. We got to the beach and, after
beaching our dinghy, took the path other cruisers before us had cut
through to the Atlantic side of the island. In the past, this has
been a great shelling and flotsam hunting ground. However, at some
point, recently, some presumed several folks had neatly cleaned up the
entire beach, putting the previous storm-tossed stuff into several
piles along the top of the sand line, before the dunes. Ah, well. We
got a good-exercise (it's always good exercise to walk barefoot in
uneven full sand footing!) walk in, and returned to our dinghy ashore.

We noted that two other boats - both power boats - now shared our
anchorage, on which more anon, but set to work on our dinghy fault
resolution. A portion of the rotomolded plastic hull, at the transom,
had a small split in it. That didn't seem structurally alarming, but
it leaked, an annoyance resulting in water always being in the bilge.
My solution wasn't technically challenging, but required us to empty
the dinghy entirely, including removing the engine, in order to flip
it over.

I'd brought all the needed tools and "stuff" and in short order, had
the repair in place. Taking the opportunity, with it upside down on
the sand, we removed all the remnants of Vero Beach's fecund waters
from the hull and tubes, washed the interior and rinsed it down, and
reassembled all the parts we'd removed. No leak, even almost two
months later as I write this, we're very glad to have had the easy
opportunity to resolve something which had been nagging for several
months of unsuccessful warranty negotiations with Walker Bay.

Just hanging out and enjoying the water and sun, on the 16th, we moved
Flying Pig to an anchorage near Little Harbour, and took our newly dry
dinghy in to explore the gallery (the foundry had closed for the year,
and the Pub would also, on Sunday) followed by a late lunch at Pete's
Pub, an Abaco landmark. Our anchorage was open to the cut through to
the Atlantic, and the result was that we had a constant rolling of our
hull. It wasn't dangerous, but it WAS a nuisance. Returning to
Flying Pig, we returned to our Lynyard anchorage again. As it still
was windless, or nearly so, with the small breeze there was coming
directly from where we wanted to go, again we motored the short
distance, putting the anchor down further out than we'd been when we
arrived, the better to avoid flying insects.

One of the power boats had left by the time we got back, and we were
visited by Joe and Sandy (and Baci, the dog), on Mud Puddle Rose, a
large Grand Banks cruiser. They invited us over for sundowners, so,
early in the evening, we dinghied over to their boat. A convivial
evening ensued; we'd brought substantial munchies, and, totally
independently, they had nearly the same assortment, but in different
flavors. We vowed to go to Pete's Pub's closing party on Sunday, and
parted close friends.

Meanwhile, our solar and battery upgrade done about 30 months ago has
previously managed to entirely keep up with our voracious SeaFrost
refrigerator/freezer's appetite for electrons. (Our prior system,
which was able to comfortably make the freezer 15 degrees colder than
this one, took about half the energy to run. I'll save you the very
long story in 2013 which led to its replacement...) However, this
trip had us running our portable Honda 2000 generator (a standard
among most cruising boats) to supply energy to our new
inverter-charger, to keep up with the demand. Of course, we could
complain that it had rained nearly every day (lessening our solar
gain, but keeping our water tanks entirely full), but still, this was
unusual. Fortunately, our inverter-charger (the inverter part takes
12V DC current and turns it into 120V AC current, and the charger part
can turn 120VAC power into up to 80 amperes of charge current) has
quickly given it the boost needed early on, allowing the solar and
wind to complete the charge cycle.

Still, we should not have had to run it, so some troubleshooting was
in order. In the past year, we'd had two successive battery failures,
both due to a bad cell. When we installed the 4 which make up our
bank, one arrived with a dead cell, and was replaced. So, on August
19th, when I did a specific gravity reading (the health of a lead-acid
battery is measured by the specific gravity of the acid solution in
each cell), I was annoyed to find that the last of the original 4
batteries ALSO had a bad cell. Sigh... I took that and its second
(making a 12 volt pair from two 6 volt batteries) out of the circuit
after fully charging the system. Shortening the story, the second
battery in that now-disconnected pair was fine, even after a week of
rest, but the dead-cell battery got deader (lower specific gravity and
voltage) every day.

Consultation with the manufacturer has it that this (having each of
the original 4 batteries fail from a dead cell, the first being on
delivery, two, later, about 18 months in, still under warranty, and
now, the last one) was an extremely unusual circumstance. They'll
autopsy the remaining dead battery when I exchange the cores in the
new pair I'll have to buy, to see if there was some manufacturing
issue creating this anomaly. However, I don't think they'll give me
credit for them...

Ah well, we have still as much available amperage as the typical
cruising boat, and, now that we're not trying to charge a dead
battery, we're doing fine on only 2 cells (one 12V battery). And we
continued to enjoy our time in the anchorage, and the
goodbye/season-closing party at Pete's Pub with Mud Puddle Rose.
However, we were totally at loose ends, with weather not favorable for
snorkeling the national park at Sandy Cay, so we "puttered," doing
various chores on the 'round tuit' list (we'll do that when we get a
round tuit). One of them was to clean both the refrigeration (our
SeaFrost refrigeration used both water and air cooling) and engine
intake filters. To our great gratification, both were pristine. Even
the intake pipe and valve left not a mark on my finger when I dipped
it in to see if I'd have to disassemble it, a routinely necessary step
needed to clean out Vero Beach's muck.

Finally, the weather cleared, so on August 27th we decided to head to
Sandy to snorkel. Once again, there was no wind, so we motored there,
dodging the many shallow spots, making our course very diverse.
Anchoring behind the Cay, we dinghied around to the several mooring
balls maintained by the dive companies in the area, connected the
dinghy, and headed over the side. WOW! It was MUCH better than the
last time we'd been here, and put Fowl Cay, a favorite with dive
companies, to shame. Meanwhile, one of my morning routines is to
monitor Chris Parker, our weather forecaster on whom so many cruisers
rely. He and we had been tracking Dorian. At that point he was
expected to go straight to the very south end of Florida, and work his
way north as a Category 5 hurricane. As we got back aboard after our
rinse, we looked at each other, and independently decided that we
needed to return to Vero Beach, where Lydia's mother lived, and
prepare for Dorian - and to run if needed.

So, as we headed north on our reverse of the route which had brought
us south, we knew we'd have to refill our fuel. We were able to find
a marina which didn't require us to worry about the time of the high
tide, nor have to go back into Marsh Harbour, where we might have lost
half a day's travel opportunity, and filled our diesel with another 66
gallons of fuel, topping it for our run back. As there's a double cut
(out and then back in) to negotiate to get north of Great Guana
Cay, and we didn't want to do that in the dark, we headed straight for
Settlement Harbour. In addition to Nippers, there is Grabbers, at the
beach level, and we had our farewell dinner there, dinghying back to
Flying Pig in the dark.

Up at the crack of dawn, we set about putting up the dinghy, motor and
fuel can, communicating with Chris Parker, whose forecast (and all of
the other models of weather tracking, from NOAA to Europe to the
National Hurricane Center, on that August 28th) still had Dorian
hitting Florida, with no local impact. It was thus I labeled our
track on the way home, "Running To Dorian." But, wouldn't you know
it, shortly after completing the two passages, suddenly our alternator
seemed to stop charging, and our tachometer, which derived its signal
from the alternator, not registering. You know what's coming, of
course. I have a spare. 3, in fact.

Into the hot engine room I go, and in due course, but at the cost of
75 sweaty minutes, I swap out the new alternator (only 75 hours on it)
for my replacement, rebuilt at the same time of purchase of the new
one. Off we go again. DANG! Same apparent circumstance. But the
batteries are full, and the sun is shining, so while Lydia stayed at
the helm, I got on the internet to see what's happening. Short story:
on diesel engines, you need a small resistor in the tachometer
circuit, or it eventually thinks it's charged; the controller then
prevents the signal from reaching the tachometer. I and many dozens
of others had experienced the same issue, and the solution was the
same in every case. Another round tuit, as once the sun went down and
our overall consumption needed some amps, the alternator again kicked
in.

Not the wind generator, however, as it was either dead still, or what
tiny breeze there was came from dead astern as we motored on into the
glassy seas. The trip was entirely uneventful, and we even managed to
catch the tide in AND the bridge opening we'd need to go north, making
our arrival in Vero Beach work out to 5:45 on August 29th. Heading
directly to our reserved mooring we set about getting ready to prepare
Flying Pig for the worst hurricane in Atlantic history. That
preparation was the same as we'd already done for Irma, in Vero Beach,
and Matthew, in Beaufort SC, other than that we removed the headsail
rather than binding it with some line as we'd done in the Category 2
storms we'd weathered.

All the rest is just details, and I'm sure you know that Dorian,
instead of destroying SE Florida, laid waste to the Abacos and Grand
Bahama on the day after we arrived in Vero Beach, while merely
whispering a breeze (we sail in higher winds than were here) and
occasional rain squalls in Vero Beach. Preparation of our home was
routine, if a nuisance, and our van had a full tank plus some jerry
cans of fuel - enough to go 500 miles if needed in search for fuel -
in the event we had to evacuate, or, if not, and there was a power
failure, our Honda which could keep the refrigerator working and in
between, run the coffeemaker and microwave. In the end, neither use
was needed. We went to a small memorial service that Sunday, held
outside in the Memorial Garden, as the church had been prepped for the
hurricane and thus inaccessible.

So, being here in Vero for the foreseeable future, this will be the
last log for a while. In the meantime, we are pleased to report that
while Mud Puddle Rose was lost, the crew and guests are safe. The
same is true for all of the people we personally know, albeit with
homes and businesses simply no longer there, or cruisers having lost
their boats. One of our close buddies, mentioned in an earlier log,
had their 90' aluminum cruiser gently set on the ground in a remote
area. Minor damage, and salvaging is being done by them; they are
supplied with food and water, and confident that they'll get
refloated. However, a single ferry, out of the dozens which plied the
waters between the main island and the smaller islands, survived.
Every boat in several harbours was either sunk or pushed well inland
by the huge storm surge under the 200mph winds.

We personally are still recovering mentally, faced with the total and
absolute destruction of so much that we have come to know and love.
At this writing, recovery is under way, but for Marsh Harbour and
several other of the Abaco communities, it will be many years before
new structure and infrastructure are in place.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. No cliffhanger this time, other
than that maybe we'll be immersed in some form of recovery effort.

L8R

Skip


Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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I expect to pass this way but once; any good therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it
now.
Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

- Etienne Griellet